Relief after Re-entryAlivi+o después de reintegrarse

Relief after Re-entry

Story and photos by Gregg McQueen

“It could be anybody’s boy,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, holding a photo of Kalief Browder.

A new federal bill named for Kalief Browder, who committed suicide after incarceration on Rikers Island, is designed to improve mental health services for those re-entering society after serving jail time.

New York Congressman Joe Crowley, Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, introduced the legislation, which would create a pilot program to assess the mental health of prisoners prior to release and provide continuity of mental health and other services after leaving jail.

Crowley, who represents Queens and parts of the Bronx, has named the bill the Kalief Browder Re-Entry Success Act, in recognition of the 22-year-old Bronx man who spent three years on Rikers, often in solitary confinement, though no formal charges were brought against him.

Browder committed suicide in 2015 after struggling with mental trauma following his release.

In announcing the bill outside of New York City Hall on April 3, Crowley said that Browder’s experience highlighted a number of flaws with the criminal justice system.

“But one that has not received due attention until now is the intersection between incarceration and mental health,” said Crowley.

He displayed a photo of Browder and said the young man’s story was all too common.

“It could be anybody’s boy,” Crowley remarked.

Browder died in 2015.

Under the new legislation, both the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, as well as state and local departments of corrections, will submit proposals in conjunction with organizations that provide mental health and other services outlining the programs they intend to set up.

Attorney Generals would determine grant recipients, said Crowley, and give priority to facilities with high rates of recidivism and re-incarceration.

Paul Prestia, an attorney for the Browder family, suggested that Khalief’s fate might have been different if he had been provided with some semblance of mental health services just prior to or immediately following his release.

“Kalief didn’t have that opportunity,” Prestia said. “After 800 days and nights in solitary confinement, when Kalief Browder attempted suicide on five different occasions, including one [time] just two months prior to his release, he was sent back into society without any mental health support or counseling.”

According to a report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 50 percent of male and 75 percent of female inmates in state prisons, and 63 percent of male inmates and 75 percent of inmates in jails, will experience a mental health problem requiring services in any given year.

“This is an important step,” said Ronald Day of The Fortune Society.

“As a country, we must do better to integrate back into our society, those who have spent time in prison,” Crowley said. “No one who has spent time in our prison system should be condemned to a life sentence of mental illness.”

Crowley and Prestia said they backed the city’s recent decision to close Rikers, but stressed that more needs to be done in the interim to assist prisoners.

“It’s going to be another ten years until Rikers Island is closed, and for the next ten years there will still be young men and women of color coming from Rikers Island who need mental health counseling, therapy and help,” stated Prestia.

Ronald Day, Vice President of The Fortune Society, said that young men and women at the organization’s Better Living Center are provided with mental health services and other programs to assist with re-entry.

He said the mental health assistance makes a big difference in the lives of the formerly incarcerated clients, as does having the services in one location.

“It helps to destigmatize mental illness,” Day said. “When you have a 23-year-old saying, ‘I’m going to see my therapist,’ you know you’ve made strides.’”

Day praised Crowley’s legislation and said he hoped The Fortune Society could serve as one of the providers.